Lesson on friendship learned from All in the Family

Last night I watched a fifth-season episode of All in the Family, in which Archie and George Jefferson squabble over a counterfeit $20 bill.  Then the argument carries over onto Edith and Louise.

The two women are desperate to apologize to each other and make up, but their husbands resist this, with George out-and-out telling Louise that if she does, she can leave her key and never come home.

Well, neither one of them listens.  They run to each other to make up, no matter what their husbands say about it, because they care about each other and it’s the right thing to do.

This reminded me of Richard, my ex-friend, and how all he had to do was apologize and tell me he doesn’t support how his wife has been treating me.  But he never did.

I strongly suspect that he was forbidden by his wife to do this.

Even though she is clearly in the wrong, having abused and mistreated me again and again, because I am naturally quiet and socially awkward, and because I felt she was being mean and nasty to everyone.

But the right thing to do, what real friends would do, is to defy your controlling spouse and do it anyway.

Which tells me one of two things: Either he is so controlled by his wife that he won’t do the right thing, or he was never my real friend in the first place, rather the covert narcissist.